Every morning you walk out to your front lawn to pick up the newspaper. And every morning the neighbors on each side of you physically assault you.

For as long as you can remember, you've lived in a house with a particular set of neighbors on either side of you. And ever since you moved there, your neighbor to the right, let's call him Mr. Right, would give you a bloody nose.

In talking with him about it, he argued that it was justified to keep the neighborhood in order. Mr. Left OTOH took your side and thought that that was complete bullshit.

But some many years back Mr. Left had started accosting you as well. Every morning he'd slap you in the face, box your ears, and kick you in the shins. And he added things over time, like nipple twists and indian burns and wet willys, and then later added foot stompings and hair pulling and nose tweaking.

In talking with him about it, he argued that it was justified to keep the neighborhood in order. Mr. Right OTOH took your side and thought that that was complete bullshit.

So in summary, nowadays every morning you are assaulted in ten different ways.

Many of Mr. Left's assaults are kind of silly, but can be somewhat painful nonetheless.

Mr. Right's assault is definitely painful, and a big pain afterwards in that you have to spend some time stopping the bleeding each time.

So, which is worse to you? That depends on if you're more like Mr. Right or Mr. Left.

If you're more like Mr. Left, then:

1) Mr. Right is worse because it's more severe to you, and

2) It's actually far worse to you because you have an ingrained, noticeably skewed sense of proportion anyway.

If you're more like Mr. Right, then:

1) Mr. Left is worse to you because he comes at you with 9 times the assaults, and

2) It's actually far worse to you because he's actually continuing to add more and more assaults to the daily barrage, with no end in sight, and

0) You're wondering, in the first place, do you really even need to be assaulted that much, period, for there to be some minimal level of order maintained in the neighborhood.

Mr. Top- who has the weaponry and legal ability to stop Mr. Right and Mr. Left but doesn't have any will to do so because he's making money off the situation; and Mr. Bottom, who is living in your back alley off of cheap red wine and the occasional hit of cocaine and stealing the money you buried in the coffee can in your yard.

Well you're basically right that there are essentially the apolitical segments you speak of, the rich guy who doesn't give a spit about abortion or gay rights but just wants the govt. to keep his taxes low and barriers to entry for his would-be competitors high, and the hobo without much of his mental faculties.

But otherwise what you say about Mr. Top is just what Mr. Left says about him, which I don't believe. Mr. Top has no (need for) weaponry, and certainly doesn't want to exercise his legal muscle again

Mr. Top and Mr. Bottom are not apolitical. They're both *VERY* political and they control more of your life than you know. Mr. Top cares a lot about both abortion and gay rights- because it keeps you from seeing what he is really doing, which is not keeping barriers to competition high, but actually lowering those barriers to lower his costs. The fewer barriers to competition there are, the more he can farm jobs around the world, always seeking the lowest labor cost so that he can maximize the difference

Also, there's another breed of Mr. Top who isn't very rich at all- but is EXTREMELY politically powerful. The generals of the armies, the chiefs of police, the county sheriffs as also Mr. Top- and if you think they are apolitical you're really not seeing the big picture.

I do not see army generals and police chiefs and sheriffs, as a group, as having any particular characteristic political leaning. So I'm not seeing the big picture then I guess, but then I'd say you did a poor job (or no job) of painting it here.

And I define "apolitical" as someone who doesn't care about politics as heart-felt issues. Someone who doesn't care about politics except to use it as a distraction is "apolitical" to me.

Finally, I vaguely recall a "Homeless in LaJolla" account but am not familiar w